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Very new here working with bees, have only one hive was hoping to expand to two or three this year. Not good at finding the queen, but I know there is a problem with my hive. Hive made it through the winter with lots of bees,looking very strong there, problem is, no brood in hive only a very small section of capped an uncapped drone brood. I either have a drone laying queen or a laying worker. A fellow beekeeper is going to give me a frame of brood to keep the hive going.Called about a queen,but she won't be coming until the lst of April. It was suggested to make up a new hive using this brood take my hive 20 feet away and shake off all bees.The bad queen or the laying worker would be left behind,then to install the new queen when she arrives, making sure to check for queen cells. Does this all sound about right? Would hate to lose my only hive.

Laying workers are tough. You may also have a queen who's fertility ran out. If it's a queen you need to find her and get rid of her. If it's a laying worker, it's very difficult to find them. Your plan sounds about as good as any. If you could get someone to help you look for a queen who is good at it, it would help to find the old one if she's there.

You can get some QMP pheromes from Mann Lake or others that will help hold the hive together until you get a new queen installed. Your other problem without a queen is the bees may drift off to hives in the area that have queens.

Also, it may be too early for good fertile drones to mate with a virgin queen from your fresh brood from your friends hive.

Jane you wrote:
Hive made it through the winter with lots of bees,looking very strong there, problem is, no brood in hive only a very small section of capped an uncapped drone brood. I either have a drone laying queen or a laying worker.

Reply:
Sounds like a possibility for either or.

You further wrote:
A fellow beekeeper is going to give me a frame of brood to keep the hive going.Called about a queen,but she won't be coming until the lst of April.

Reply:
This is good to give the hive some extra brood so it can get some yound nurse bees.Queens that sometimes get too cold due to too few bees in cluster during winter sometimes go infertile.

You further wrote:
It was suggested to make up a new hive using this brood take my hive 20 feet away and shake off all bees.The bad queen or the laying worker would be left behind,then to install the new queen when she arrives, making sure to check for queen cells. Does this all sound about right? Would hate to lose my only hive.

Reply:
While I myself wouldn't do it, as laying workers are normal underconditions like this, it is standard industry practice now to do shakedowns (though they result in loss of genetics due to loss of good laying workers capable of raising queens.)

But for your case, the new brood would continue the colony and give the bees you have something to do and maintain. In two weeks if the queen does not arrive though, I'd add another new frame of open and sealed brood so that the new nurse bees (now of age) can then raise a new queen on their own in case your present bees are too old in age to do so with the first batch (frame of brood here) given.

I'd also forget the phermones from Mann Lake, so as not to upset the internal balance of the colony and have it's presence too strong when the new queen arrives, so the new queen arriving isn't seen as trying to take over from the imaginary one and killed by defensive workers.

Started to feed the hive 1-1 sugar water to simulate a honey flow,called a place in Texas ,Lamb's Honey Farm, they are going to send me a Carniolan queen by Friday. Temperature on Friday may be in the 50's.

My problem under these kinds of circumstances has been the bees drifting off to other hives (I assume). At any rate they leave when there is no viable queen. I have not tried the Pheromones myself, but they are commonly used in mating nucs without the bees tending to kill the newly hatched queens or virgin queens introduced in them. Here's a reference for anyone interested. I have purchased some for the next time I find myself in this predicamenthttp://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/gilmar/u...heromones.html

The only problem here Michael is with most mating nucs with breeders you are talking extremely small mating nucs, most other beekeepers do not use and they need something to keep the cup fulls of bees there normally.

In large hives being requeened, this is not the case (talking 2-3 boxes of bees) and skematics tend to change.

Just something to think about and also maybe something researchers might like to play with for more information.

My queen arrived today what is the best time to introduce her to the hive? Is it at the time I shake all the bees from the frames or should I let them queenless for 24 hrs?Also read different opinions on the nurse bees sent with the queen,should they be left with her or should they be taken out

&gt;My queen arrived today what is the best time to introduce her to the hive? Is it at the time I shake all the bees from the frames or should I let them queenless for 24 hrs?

Part of the question is "are they queenless already?" I don't know the answer to that for sure. If you can go through carefully looking for a queen maybe you can find her.

If there is no queen then they are already queenless.

Also, you can consider Dee's suggestion that a shakedown is not necessary. She's got much more experience in this than me and I don't think you can go wrong following her advice. She is also acknowledging that it is the standard practice when there's a laying worker to do a shakedown. Personally I've never done a shakdown under these kind of circumstances, I've just requeened and things seem to work out ok but I haven't had this occur but once so I can't draw a lot of conclusions except that Dee's larger experience seems to concur.

&gt;Also read different opinions on the nurse bees sent with the queen,should they be left with her or should they be taken out

There's no doubt acceptance is better if you take them out, but the trick is getting them out.

I asked the people on this board once, and I'll ask again, is there anyone who has a simple method for doing this that would work for a newbie?

I don't have a foolproof method and I've taken them out sometimes and left them in other times. I haven't noticed that much difference myself but all the research would indicate that acceptance is better with them out.

[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited March 21, 2003).]

I've considered making a small box with some plexiglass so I can see and they have a place to be attracted to with some holes for my arms with maybe a flap of cloth that covers the holes when you take your arms out. Has anyone used something like this?

As to the bathroom window method, it's still not that simple. I was always afraid I'd lose the queen and never catch her again.

[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited March 21, 2003).]

here what my mom/dad has done in the past and i do now. put the new queen(cage and all on top of second super for 3 days then move her to the bottom into deep hive body and put queen excluder on top. old sick queen will be up to and workers go back down where new queen is. I did this 2x last year and old queen was on top of queen excluder about dead a week later and new queen already laying within. not saying this is the correct way of doing things! but I can say it works